PEACE MAKER
Jose de Venecia Jr.
Former Speaker of the House
The 2022 Winter Olympics commenced in Beijing last Friday, amidst the RAGING COVID-19 pandemic and geopolitical challenges around the world, especially the mounting tensions between Russia and the United States and its NATO allies over Ukraine.
There are reportedly some 3,000 athletes from 90 countries that are participating in the Winter Olympics.
Our country has sent an official delegation accompanying the Philippines’ entry, the 21-year-old Alpine skier Asa Miller, who will compete in the slalom and giant slalom events.
Some international observers pointed out that the Winter Olympics, commonly called Beijing 2022, cuts a sharp contrast to the 2008 Beijing Summer Games which was attended by then US President George W. Bush and other Western leaders. The US, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, and Japan are not joining the Winter Olympics.
Our wife Gina and we were privileged to have been invited by then Chinese President Hu Jintao to the opening of the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics, which was graced by presidents, prime ministers, royalties, and other world leaders.
The welcome banquet for the 80 guests from around the world was tendered by President Hu at the magnificent Great Hall of the People. We remember being seated at the same table as then Dutch Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende, former Indonesian President Megawati Sukarnoputri, political leaders Sonia Gandhi of India and Bilawal Bhutto of Pakistan, son of our old friend, the late Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto.
Seated at the table nearby were President Hu and his wife, Liu Yongqing, US President George W. Bush, then Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, French President Nicolas Sarkozy, and Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda.
Also present were President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo and our old friends former Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra and former African Union president Jean Ping, among others. We also spotted Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, who spoke fluent Mandarin, Israeli President Shimon Peres, and Prince Albert II of Monaco, son of the late Prince Rainer III whom we had the privilege to meet in the late 1970s when we were a pioneering businessman in the Middle East and North Africa.
Our wife Gina told us then that it was such a gargantuan task for the protocol officers to work out the seating arrangements to make sure that nobody sat next to a political rival and the choices of food to be served the dignitaries from around the world.
We are pleased to note that in 2005, three years before the Beijing Summer Olympics and on our invitation as then Speaker of the House of Representatives, Chinese President Hu Jintao addressed the joint session of the Philippine Congress, in the course of his state visit to our country.
It was also during our time as Speaker when US President George W. Bush, Pakistani President Pervez Musharaff, and Indian President A.P.J. Kalam addressed the joint session of the Philippines’ House of Representatives and Senate.
During our Beijing visit for the Summer Olympics, our old friend Wang Jiauri, head of the international department of the Communist Party of China (CPC) and a member of the CPC central committee, graciously hosted a welcome dinner for us and our wife Gina.
The Communist Party of China has been a steadfast ally of our International Conference of Asian Political Parties in promoting dialogue, understanding, and cooperation among countries and peoples of different cultures and religions through the network of political parties.
The CPC sits in the ICAPP standing committee, which we chair since we founded and launched ICAPP in Manila in September 2000. The CPC has also hosted several ICAPP conferences in the Chinese cities of Beijing, Kunming, and Nanning.
Indeed, China is far richer, more powerful, and more influential in the international community now than when it hosted the 2008 Summer Olympics.
Olympics are a great platform to promote friendship, cooperation, understanding, peace, and reconciliation among countries and peoples around the world.